Fallout 1 any% Speedrun Guide
This is a guide to speedrunning the first part of Fallout series in single segment - that means playing from start to end in one sitting. Build Before we start modifying the stats, apart from naming the character or changing its age (both don't impact the run), we need to make sure that we select female gender. This is important, because female models move faster than male ones (with the exception of wearing specific armours (like robes), which don't distinguish male from female). SPECIAL stats: The build requires us to have at least 10 AG and 7 IN. Maximum Agility is needed for maximum number of 10 AP (action points) which are used extensively in bypassing various characters and situations during the run, whereas Intelligence of at least 7 ensures that all the needed dialogue options are shown, allowing to pass all the conversations successfully (if the speech checks succeed). Two other SPECIAL statistics that are very important are EN and ST. Both affect maximum HP (hit points), and at an early stage of the run we need as many as we can get. Especially Endurance is very important, as it influences HP more than Strength. Both EN and ST set to 10 cause the character to have 45 HP, the maximum possible. Remaining points (if we don't set EN and ST to maximum) could be put in: * Charisma: to up the Speech skill (1 CH points = +2 % Speech skill), making the Speech checks easier * Intelligence: to up the Science skill (1 IN points = +2 % Science skill), making the Science checks easier Other stats (Perception and Luck) are pretty much useless, moreover they are problematic speedrun-wise. Perception higher than 1 causes problems in the Cathedral (in the corridor leading to/from the Master), while Luck on the other hand doesn't change anything for better. Contrariwise, high Luck causes MORE random encounters to spawn - namely the special, rare encounters. As such both stats should be set to 1. Skills: When it comes to skills, there is no real choice. You need to tag Lockpick, Speech and Science. All three skills are used in the run heavily (especially Lockpick and Speech ; Science is only used in two places, but one of those is very critical - namely arming the warhead in the Cathedral). Thus, their level is important and should be as high as possible to help passing those skill checks successfully. In the later parts of game after levelling up, you need to invest points in them, and that's why tagging them is so important (tag means instant +20% at the start of the game AND a 2x multiplier when adding points). There are many locks to pick, many mutants and humans to mock, and computers to hack, so it's very important to tag all of them. Traits: In analogy, we are limited to selecting Skilled and Good Natured traits. Skilled raises every skill by 10% (so all our skills are affected) and Good Natured raises the "diplomatic" skills, thus improving our Speech skill by 15%. It's possible to select other traits, but it makes the run harder. The most runner-friendly build looks like this: Remember that we can save our character in a .GCD file and load it whenever we make another attempt by going to Options and Save/Load in this very screen. This is also a good time to encourage you to use keyboard shortcuts. Instead of clicking (from the main menu screen): New game, Create character, then Name, Age, Sex (and/or Options), we can press N and C to get to the character creation sheet, N, A and S to access name, age and sex and/or O to open save/load menu. While this is not so important right now, using shortcuts helps a great deal during the run. Last but not least: Escape or Enter keys have their general roles, they exit menus. Enter is slightly the better choice as it accepts options. Press Enter to begin your adventure with speedrunning. General route The route hasn't changed since 2005, there are only new tricks on the way. First off, after you leave the cave you go to Military Base, instead of taking the key and the robe you skip both of them. After you use the terminal and start the self-destruct sequence you rush off to the exit and go straight away to Cathedral. In Cathedral you go to the tower and talk to Morpheus to get to the Master. Then you get on the level 4 and arm the warhead using science skill. After you finish this, you go back to level 3 and then to level 1, talk to Jeremiah and get kicked out of the Cathedral. Then you leave the area and the run is over. This sounds pretty easy and for the most part, it really is. The only hard trick to pull off that is essential to the run is arming the warhead in Cathedral and surviving that. Detailed description of tricks used in run Speedclick This is a trick often overlooked by new runners. When facing south-east or south-west, you can run faster by interrupting the animation with another click. To achieve better results, you need to keep a rhythm to it. It is possible to speedclick on other directions, but the timing is different and it may not be a big difference, so you should probably stick to speedclick on south directions. This works also when you are going straight down and go on a zig-zag pattern, like in some corridors of Military Base. Combat glitch A very basic trick, but also one of the most important ones. If you enter combat manually, it will end either when you run out of action points, or leave it manually. When you are leaving the combat mode you spam 'A' to enter it again, you will do so before any enemy can react to it. You can chain it as long as you don't deal damage to enemies. The trick is used pretty much in every location and is the only thing that can help you get out alive from random encounters. 0 glitch Another simple trick, when in dialogue with an NPC you press '0', the conversation ends and depending on the NPC, you are either left alone, will get into the same dialogue again or get attacked, if the NPC is in its aggro state. It is used 3 times during the run (4 if you manage to screw up with Master). First in Military Base on level 3 - the supermutant will leave you alone. Then in Cathedral on level 3 - the supermutant will attack you after the dialogue disappears, but this is avoided via quicksave and quickload. The last one is at the end of the run, when Overseer tells you to get out - it skips all the dialogue. Save aggro skip In order to do this trick, it's best to set up a quicksave earlier - it can be pretty much any transition screen. In this guide I suggested to do it at the moment of arrival in Cathedral. To set up the save slot you should press F6 and enter twice. When you encounter this supermutant at the 3rd level of Cathedral: Let him talk to you and press 0. When the dialogue box slides down press F6 and then quickly F7 and enter. This will save game right in this place and reload it. It makes supermutant's aggro to reset and you are free to go further. Passing supermutants in Cathedral level 3 Depending on wheter you enter Cathedral at day or night, you get a different number of supermutants in the room next to elevator. Day If it's day there will be more of them and you will have to use combat glitch in the middle of the room. You should enter the room through the door on the right. Follow these screenshots on your way to the level 4: When you are going back use follow these: Night At night you only need one full move to avoid enemies. Enter the location through the left door. When you go to the level 4, follow this screenshot and enter combat when you reach the marked hex: When you come back, follow these: Arming the warhead in Cathedral This is a trick that requires a little bit of practice. Right after you pick the door at the 4th level of Cathedral, open them and as soon as they begin to open, enter combat (you will save a few frames this way, because door will be instantly opened). Now move to this location while still in combat: When you reach it, you can safely turn combat off and you will not be attacked by the supermutants. It is advised to make a quicksave here. Now you need to arm the bomb. Use science on the terminal, and right when the animation ends, you have to enter combat again. If you do it too early, you will interrupt the animation and you will enter combat mode instead. That will cost you a few seconds, but at least you can try to do that again - just turn combat mode off and repeat. However, if you do it too late, the supermutants will attack you before you can do anything. That basically means that you have to reload from save. If you manage to get the timing right, you have to take a look if you actually succeed in arming the warhead. If you fail the test, you have to reload the save. If all goes well you can run away from the mutants - just spend the full 10 points: Making Overseer appear Sometimes, at the end of the run you don't see the Overseer. This is a known bug and you can make him appear either by using the terminal at the vault door, enter combat or go to the pipboy screen. I suggest you use the last one and when you see the images after you blow up Cathedral, spam 'P' button and '0'. This way you will get into the pipboy screen and skip the whole dialogue. When the dialogue slides off, you need to press Escape button to close the pipboy screen. Step-by-step Fallout speedrun Cave After you create your character and skip the Overseer dialogue you need to exit the cave before you can go anywhere else. Depending on rng, 0, 1, 2, 3 or 4 rats may get in your way. The most common pattern is that you will have to avoid 3 rats. If you are unlucky, one more will bug you. If you are lucky enough, you will get 2 or very rarely 1. if you get no rats on your way, then you have won the lottery because that never happens (it can in theory, but I haven't seen it). With the standard 3 rats on your way and proper usage of speedclick you should be able to exit the cave in 18 seconds. Anything lower than 18 is good. Now, the important thing is to make rats start the combat when you encounter them, go a few hexes behind them, and manually leave the combat. You can always start the combat first and abuse the combat glitch to go past the last rat, but that is slower, because you can't use speedclick in combat and since the rat won't move, you will always have 3 rats. At the very first moment when you can move your character for the first time, you are facing the south-east side. This allows you to use speedclick to get to the first rat. After you skip it and leave combat, you can use speedclick a few times more before the second rat goes at you. Skip the second rat and if all goes well, the rat that is on the right side shouldn't bother you. If he does, it's best to restart the run. Go south-west to the last rat and put a few speedclicks on the way. After you skip the last rat you will be facing west, so speedclicks are not an option, but there is maybe 4-5 hexes that go a bit to the south, so you can abuse the speedclick in that part. Wasteland #1 Go straight west. Preferably you want to have no encounters on your way. If you happen to get one then depending on the spot where you get the encounter, you have different enemies to deal with. If you get one before small mountain somewhere in the middle of the way you will get either rats, molerats, radscorpions or Patrick. Patrick will not attack you but instead try to sell some of his stuff. His encounter usually happens right at the mountain or in the square to the left. If you happen to get that encounter, it's better if you don't start combat, because if it's Patrick, you will save a bit of time. If you get an encounter later on your way, it will most likely be supermutants, and as soon as you see encounter happening, spam a to get into combat. Military Base Every dialogue from now on will be indicated by numbers in round brackets (). The best way is to press these buttons, but you can also click the corresponding line. If you choose to press the button instead, you can try to buffer the press by pushing it a little earlier than the dialogue box appear. Keep in mind this is risky and may ruin the run. Start off by going to the first supermutant you see and talk with him: (2) (1) You will be taken right to the Lieutenant. Talk to him: (2) (1) (1) Now don't take anything from the lockers, just go left past the forcefield. You will be passing through 3 of them in the whole run and they deal between 10-30 damage. If you went with the max hp build you will have 45 HP, so if you aim to leave the base without the need of healing up, you shouldn't take more than 14 damage per each forcefield. If before passing another forcefield you have less than 25 HP, or less than 31, if you managed to get really good rng with rats, you have to heal up. Open the door leading to the north-west side of this level and use science on the terminal next to the window, with flickering screens. Then choose the correct path: (1) (4) (1) I usually go with this one, but others work as well. Now go back down the hallway and get to the elevator on the left. This place is one of the few long halls in the run that you can utilize speedclick the most. Ride to the 3rd floor. Next you have a supermutant you need to use a 0 glitch to pass. When you pass the corner, enter the combat on the 1st hex just behind the corner. Now go to the hex just before the corner and use combat glitch to enter combat again. Your last move will be behind the door, which is a safe area. Go to the left. Heal up if you need and once you get to the north wall, you can speedclick to the elevator. Get to the 1st floor. Heal again if you need and go straight to the exit on the south-east side. Utilize speedclick as much as you can. When you get to the last part you will be approached by the supermutant guarding the entrance to Military Base. The following speech check works most of the time, but sometimes you will fail it. Convince the supermutant that you are on a special mission: (3) (1) Go straight left and get enough height to use the speedclick the most when you leave the location. Wasteland #2 Go straight to the Cathedral - walk south-east at about 45 deegree angle (or 135 depending from which side you look at this). You might want to go a little bit more to the south than east, but you should end pretty much in the simillar way. Here almost every encounter is terrible and you are at the rng's mercy. Cathedral Take note wheter it's day or night. Before you enter the building, you should make a quicksave: F6 then enter twice (three times if your first slot isn't empty, so you better erase your savegames beforehand), it will be easier to dodge one supermutant later. Enter Cathedral and level up. Hit 'C' and then enter to get the first perk that appears. It doesn't matter anyway. You should level about 120% lockpick, you can also level up science and speech, to have a higher chance of arming the bomb and talking to Jeremiah, respectfully. If you want to save the most time, you can ignore levelling, but the chance to open 4 doors on 75% lockpick is very low, so good luck with that. You can either use clicking or '+' button to level skill up, the latter is faster, but you can try using both, though I'm not sure if it makes it faster or not. Remember to hit enter after you finish up levelling. Open the door on the north-east side and go upstairs. When you get to the next zone, enter combat, walk upstairs again and use combat glitch to remain in combat. Repeat the process one more time to get to the final floor. Enter combat again and move 2 hexes to get to the door and open them. Walk into the room far enough to spend all remaining action points and let combat end. Speak to Morpheus: (2) (1) (2) (1) Sometimes, randomly he will get upset and the conversation goes differently after you press the (2) option - he will be talking about the "deal" - if this happens and you realize that in time, you should input: (1) (1) Now, before the next screen loads, press and hold 'A' to enter the combat. If you spam 'A' instead, sometimes you will end up in a dialogue with Master. When this happens, you can actually recover by using the zero glitch and entering combat again. Use all of the action points to move south-east and combat glitch again. Now you only need to make one more hex forward to be in a safe zone. Go down the hall and utilize the speedclick and pass the supermutant - use the save aggro skip described in 3.4. Go to the room on the left side. Here, you will have to combat glitch past the supermutants. Check point 3.5 for more details. When you manage to get to the elevator doors, picklock both of them and proceed to level 4. Here comes one of the hardest tricks to pull off - arming the bomb. For detailed information check point 3.6. When you successfully arm the bomb and get back to level 3, dodge supermutants again and go to the elevator in the middle. Ride down to floor 1 and wait for Jeremiah to intercept you. Following dialogue may not work all the time, depending on your speech, but you can still fail the check even if you have 140%. Make him kick you out: (3) (3) (1) Use speedclick for the last time and leave the zone to the left. Overseer Overseer may appear at the entrance, but sometimes he doesn't, there are a couple ways to make him appear - check 3.7. That's it! The run is over.